A Dirty Way To Die (The Sharpshooter #15)

A Dirty Way To Die, by Bruno Rossi

No month stated, 1975

How in the world have I gone over two years without reading a Sharpshooter? Maybe I’ve been putting it off because, as hard as it is to believe, there’s only one more volume after this one. It’s taken me over ten years to get this far, which only again reinforces how quickly this series was written and published – all these books came out within the span of two years. 

Once again a big thanks to Lynn Munroe, who revealed that A Dirty Way To Die is a sort of collaboration between series editor Peter McCurtin and series mainstay Russell Smith. As Lynn notes, “McCurtin only wrote the first chapter. The rest of the book has different characters and is actually a different story, changed ever so slightly to tie it to Chapter One.” We might be in a similar situation to another McCurtin venture, The Camp, for which McCurtin wrote the first chapter and Len Levinson wrote the rest. But whereas Len at least hewed a little closely to McCurtin’s opening chapter, Smith seems to turn in an entirely unrelated book, so I guess another possibility is that McCurtin welded a chapter of his own to Smith’s manuscript, so as to set up the storyline. Because as ever Russell Smith turns in a “plot” that requires the reader to do some very heavy lifting in order to make sense of anything. 

So in chapter one, which clearly seems to be by McCurtin, a New York Don talks to a dirty New York cop about that perennial problem, Johnny Rock. The cop’s novel suggestion is to kill a kid and pin it on Rock; there’s mention here, finally, that Rock has gunned down women and hookers and whatnot in his past exploits, but the public at large, we’re told, has sort of brushed off these kills given that the women were involved with the Mafia anyway. Thus Rock’s folkloric heroism is strong as ever. But if a kid were to be killed – especially a “problem” kid – and Rock was blamed for that, the situation would change. The cop even has a kid in mind – the retarded eleven year-old son of a Mafia floozy whose husband was killed years before by Rock; she beats the kid anyway, so they’d be doing him a favor. The Don likes the idea and gives the go ahead. The cop says he didn’t come up with the idea alone, that he hired a “one man think tank” psychologist “in California” named Dr. Dorelli to come up with a way to finally bring down Rock – and thus the idea was Dorelli’s. 

So there’s the setup. Next chapter opens, and we’re thrust without preamble into the typical surrealism of a Russell Smith novel. We meet Rock as he’s in Palo Alto, California, scoping out VAPA, the Veteran’s Association of Palo Alto. This hospital for vets is where Dr. Mario Dorelli serves as chief psychologist, and Rock’s here to settle a score. So then, the killing of the kid has already happened…but what’s curious is that we learn so little about it that one gets the impression Smith himself doesn’t even know what happened. All we’re told is that Rock is furious because “every cop in New York” is out to get him, and he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to get the heat off. But even more curiously this concern is never brought up again, nor is whatever brought Rock out to Palo Alto…for the most part, he just seems to be stalking Dr. Dorelli, whom Rock only suspects of being involved with the mob. 

Whereas McCurtin’s chapter vaguely set Dorelli up as a “one man think tank,” in Smith’s narrative Dorelli is a Mafia bigwig who was previously known as Joseph Reitano, and who worked with the CIA in ‘Nam and ran a dirty black ops squad that was known for sadism. For reasons never really disclosed, Rock is the only person in the entire world to figure out that Reitano and Dorelli are one and the same, and Rock decides to jolt the doctor by leaving a message in his office at VAPA under the name of “Joseph Reitano.” Rock gives the message to Dorelli’s lovely assistant, Eleanor Wood, a Jamaican woman “as black as a moonless Jamaican night and equally as romantic.” This sets off a strange cat and mouse game between Rock and Dorelli, with Rock at one point disguised as a doctor and spying on Dorelli inside VAPA, then later asking the always-horny Eleanor on a date to get info out of her on his prey. Meanwhile Dorelli – who as typical for a Smith novel gets way too much narrative space of his own – frets over who could know that he was once Joseph Reitano, or if it’s just some cosmic fluke that this guy has the exact same name that he once did. 

Smith serves up what have become staples of any of his Sharpshooter or Marksman manuscripts; Rock gets a room in an old hotel, murders a few thugs in cold blood, captures and interrogates a few people, and ultimately ends up on a boat. Smith also refers back to many of his previous manuscripts, in particular Vendetta, given that Rock ventures over to Sausalito, “well remember[ing] his last trip there.” Of course Smith’s narratives have been published as both Sharpshooters and Marksmans, even though they all clearly feature the same protagonist (Vendetta for example being a Marksman installment), which yields an extra metafictional layer to it all. There’s also curious mention here of a supposedly-recurring minor character named “Frank,” a short-statured Mafia flunky who has run into “Rock” three times in the past and has just managed to escape death each time. I have no recollection of this character, but presumably he must’ve appeared in previous Smith novels (in either series). 

One interesting “new” element in this one is that Rock actually gets in a firefight; in most other Smith yarns, Rock (or Magellan) just shoots down his prey in cold blood, usually while their backs are turned. He does that here, of course, gunning down some thugs who have shown up to ambush him in a bar, but later on he gets in a protracted gunfight with more thugs in yet another bar. This is in another of those surreal Smith sequences where Rock just goes into this dive with zero explanation or setup, talks to one of the Asian hookers who work the joint, then figures out the place is a Mafia front. Some thugs come in to get him and Rock blasts away with a pistol in each fist: the customary Beretta 9MM (which has appeared in every Smith manuscript, despite the series) in his right and a Colt .38 revolver in his left. The gore factor is very pronounced in this one, with characters puking at the sight of the shattered, brain-spewing skulls left in the wake of Rock’s bullets. 

But as mentioned, regardless of the series, Smith has always and ever been writing about the same protagonist, and since Philip Magellan came first then that ultimately means that A Dirty Way To Die is just another Smith installment of The Marksman. As the novel proceeds it only becomes more apparent. “Rock” wears a “nylon cord” around his waist, lugs an artillery case, wields the same 9mm Beretta, has a penchant for disguises, and drugs up a few random women before interrogating them in sadistic fashion. These are all hallmarks of Philip Magellan. Anyway I’ve beaten this dead horse enough in past reviews so it’s safe to say that by this point we all understand that, for the most part, Johnny Rock and Philip Magellan are one and the same, at least when the book is written by Russell Smith. 

I would say that all the Smith novels from both series could be gathered together and a running narrative might be found within them, but that sure as hell isn’t the case. Smith’s “plotting” is just as nuts as his protagonist. Things happen for absolutely no reason throughout A Dirty Way To Die, with no setup or explanation for most of it. This is why I suspect that McCurtin’s introductory chapter might’ve been added after Smith submitted his manuscript. Otherwise Rock just arrives in Palo Alto, stalks Dorelli, kills a few thugs, captures, drugs and interrogates two women, blows away a few more thugs in a rushed finale, and only at the very end are we even given a hazy explanation of why Rock’s here: In ‘Nam, when Dorelli was a CIA spook named Reitano, he would murder servicemen about to return home and then sell their IDs to other soldiers who were desperate to get out of the war. But Smith still forgets to inform us how Rock figured out that Reitano became Dorelli, or even how Rock became personally involved in the situation, save for a vague but compelling mention that one of Dorelli/Reitano’s affairs in ‘Nam “involved Rock.” 

So there’s no mention throughout of the “special kid” whose fate was determined in the first chapter, and it’s possible that the line early in chapter two that “every cop in New York” is out to get Rock could’ve been a McCurtin amendment to Smith’s manuscript. But without McCurtin’s opening chapter the novel takes on an even more surreal vibe, as Rock stalks and strikes Dorelli even though he’s not certain until the very end that Dorelli is really in the mob and is trafficking cocaine. Smith really drags this out past the breaking point, clearly trying to fill pages – we know from the get-go that Dorelli’s in the mob, given the parts of the narrative devoted to him, and we also know that Rock is in town trying to figure out how dirty Dorelli is. Yet the characters themselves don’t learn the truth about one another until toward the end of the novel. Dorelli’s realization that the young doctor calling himself “Dr. Joseph Reitano,” who just arrived in town is indeed Johnny Rock is especially ridiculous, given all the thug-killings that follow in the wake of “Dr. Reitano’s” presence…not to mention the little fact that “Reitano” has the same exact name as Dorelli’s original one! 

As Lynn Munroe notes, Smith also worked in the sleaze market, and if what he serves up late in A Dirty Way To Die is any indication of the kind of books he wrote for that market, then you’re well advised to steer clear, as it’s grimy and gross to the max. So out of nowhere, really absolutely nowhere, we suddenly learn that Dorelli has a sadistic self-punishment streak. For one, kind young Eleanor Wood, that “moonless Jamaican night” babe, turns out to be his private “slave owner,” torturing Dorelli in the office between patient visits. There’s some real sleazeball stuff here, like how Eleanor enjoys using her panties to give Dorelli a “rubdown,” and how Dorelli later must do something rather unseemly with the “soiled panties.” This part alone might have the less hardy reader racing for the restroom to spew his guts. 

Even more outrageous is the later off-the-cuff revelation that Dorelli has a live-in Filipino maid named Alicia who is hooked on coke and thus will do any sort of depraved sex act for him; we don’t see one happen, but witness the disgusting aftermath of a particularly depraved orgy, in which the stench of “shit” and “vomit” fills the room in which Dorelli and others “gang-banged” Alicia, who by the way spends the entire novel in a drugged stupor. Rock later comes upon her comatose form in the aftermath of the orgy, Rock having broken into Dorelli’s house, and wakes her up, sickened at the sight of her “chewed-up vagina” (!!). He is taken aback how casual the girl is about everything; she says she’s in no pain and instead just wants to take a bath; Rock figures she must be “used to being gang-banged!” 

Here there’s also promise that Rock himself might get in on the dirty festivities; a Mafia stooge shows up at Dorelli’s house with a hotstuff floozy in tow, assumes Rock is Dorelli, and tells him that the hotstuff babe is the latest scheme to rope in the Sharpshooter. Rock, pretending to be Dorelli, listens patiently and then excuses himself; he rushes outside, blows off the head of the Mafia stooge’s driver, and leaves! And not much else is made of the proposed floozy entrapment. But this is just how Smith rolls; it’s one wild sequence after another, usually followed by lots of page-filling where characters sit around and reflect over recent bizarre circumstances. It’s like they’ve all been plunged into a surreal nightmare in which nothing makes sense, which pretty much sums up ever Smith novel I’ve yet read. 

The helluva it is, Smith shows that he can deliver memorable characters: Eleanor Wood, despite the eleventh hour revelation of her sadomasochistic impulses, is a likeable character with a gift for sarcastic comments. Rock takes her on a “date” in which he first mows down several Mafia thugs and then threatens to kill Eleanor if she doesn’t get on a Chris-Craft boat he steals in Sausalito (the same boat he – as Magellan – stole in Vendetta), and throughout Eleanor keeps joking about when they’re going to get around to eating dinner. Of course Rock ultimately drugs her up (this after copious description of her vomitting due to sea sickness) and, when she won’t talk, terrorizes her with water snakes in what is clearly a shoutout to when Rock terrorized his captives with rats back in #3: Blood Bath (another Russell Smith joint, and another that clearly started life as a Marksman manuscript). 

Oh and Rock also captures another woman, just out of the blue; after the gunfight at the dive, Rock jumps in a car and beats the woman behind the wheel silly. He appropriates the car, taking the comatose woman along with him, and then tosses her, naked, into the hold with Eleanor. Absolutely no explanation is given of who this woman is…Smith seems to imply she’s a “driver” for the Mafia, but she’s presented as yet another innocent caught up in the sadistic sway of “Rock.” She too will be drugged, but Rock doesn’t even interrogate her, thus her entire presence is as baffling as anything else that happens in the novel. And another thing – after all this cruelty, Eleanor’s interrogation is mostly off-page! We are informed she’s privy to all of Dorelli’s mob dealings, but after Rock spends “ten minutes” explaining to her the dangers of narcotics and how they damage the “society he still believes in,” Eleanor’s suddenly on Rock’s side…despite all the torture with the snakes, some of which tried to crawl between her legs, we’re informed. 

Meanwhile Dorelli gets a lot of his own text, as does a Mafia executioner named Zanicchi who is fond of “hanging a man on a meat hook, drenching him in urine and shit and watching him die slowly.” Zanicchi we’re informed will get a $90K bonus for killing the Sharpshooter, but what the actual bounty is we’re not informed. Regardless this particular plot, which promises so much, goes nowhere – as is typical for any Smith venture. Zanicchi’s goons are the ones mowed down by Rock while on his “date” with Eleanor, after which Smith seems to forget about Zanicchi…until the final three pages, in which Rock dispenses justice in customarily rushed fashion, wiping out sundry villains who as ever have all gotten together in one spot so he can conviently kill them all at once with his Uzi. 

Sometimes these books give a peek into the disturbed mentality of their authors, and A Dirty Way To Die is a definite case in point. Lazy plotting, go-nowhere digressions, random acts of depraved sex, and torture with water snakes. Smith is so focused on all this that he, as typical, races through the last pages with such abandon that you can almost feel his joy at finally meeting his word count. In fact the finale makes as little sense as anything else in the book. So we’re informed, again in the very final pages, that Dorelli would kill ‘Nam soldiers about to return home and sell their IDs, with the compelling hint that one of his “atrocities” over there “involved Rock.” So Rock gets Dorelli, blows apart his guts with the Uzi so he’s near death, and then straps him onto a gurney in the Chris-Craft…and apparently sets the controls for Vietnam, over the horizon? After this he calls Eleanor, who asks him to “hurry” over to her place because she “wants” him! The end! WTF?! 

By all accounts the next volume, Mafia Death Watch, is just as depraved, if not more so. That one was written by series newcomer Dan Reardon, and I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time. While this was it for Smith on The Sharpshooter, he was still churning them out over on The Marksman, so we’ll be seeing more of him in future reviews. Oh and Bob Larkin’s (uncredited) cover for A Dirty Way To Die is one of the best in the entire series, and not just because of the cleavage! Okay, so maybe the cleavage has something to do with it, but still!